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sewnsew
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Arizona USA |
| Posts: | 905 |
| First Name: | Kim | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | cradle Anglican, Episcopal /Catholic-04/07/07 |
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Posted: Sun Sep 7th, 2008 08:41 pm |
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| I notice in the missalette each week that there is an opening prayer plus an alternative- one of our priests always uses the altenative and one priest never does. Why is the alternative offered anyhow?
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David W. Emery
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Brownsville, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 2410 |
| First Name: | David | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Sep 7th, 2008 09:54 pm |
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The “Opening Prayer,” more correctly called the “Collect,” which states the general theme of the Mass (Ordinary Form) after the Gloria (or after the Penitential Rite when the Gloria is not used), has only one form in the original Latin. English is the only language version of the Mass that has this “alternative form” you speak of.
Considering that the Collect (along with the other seasonal prayers throughout the Mass, such as the Offertory Prayer and the Postcommunion) is so freely adapted in the English version as to be nearly unrecognizable when compared to the original or to other language versions, apparently it was the mind of the “translators” to also supply an “alternative” so that the priest celebrant would have a choice where, for the rest of the Catholic world, no choice exists. Frankly, I don’t know how this mish-mash got past the Vatican review. But it happened and we’ve had it in place since 1968. Typically, before Mass, I will turn the missalette to the Spanish pages and read the prayers there, even if the Mass is to be in English, because I know they have at least some resemblance to what the prayers are supposed to say.
Here is a whole series of translation studies, using different texts from the Collect, to show what I mean. Meanwhile, the “alternative” prayer for the Collect is pure invention; the “translators” created it out of thin air.
It so happens that the approval of the new English version of the Mass, which is currently being worked on by the bishops in the US, is stuck on these same seasonal prayers that were so strangely rendered in the current version. This is the section that was rejected by the bishops last spring and is currently being rehashed to be re-presented for consideration at their fall meeting. We can only hope that they pass it before it begins to look like what we already have, which the current Vatican rules say is unacceptable. At least we are assured that there will be no “alternative” this time around.
David
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